About Valenzuela flavidus (Stephens, 1836)
Valenzuela flavidus is a species of Psocoptera in the Caeciliusidae family. It can be found in the United Kingdom, and is sometimes spotted in Ireland. It is also common across Austria, the Azores, Belgium, Bulgaria, the Canary Islands, Croatia, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Luxembourg, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the Netherlands, and is widespread in the Near East. Individuals of this species are yellowish-black in colour.
This species feeds on various microflora that grow on a wide range of trees, including alder, ash, beech, berberis, birch, blackthorn, broom, elder, elm, hawthorn, hazel, ivy, laurel, oak, pine, poplar, sallow, spindle, sycamore, sea buckthorn, and willow. It also feeds on guelder rose, rhododendron, and rowan berries.
Valenzuela flavidus was first described by Stephens in 1836 under the original name Psocus flavidus, published in Illustrations of British Entomology. At the time of description, it was placed in Psocus, a broad, early catch-all genus for psocids. After Navás erected the new genus Valenzuela in 1924, this species was later transferred to Valenzuela, and this genus placement has been retained through subsequent taxonomic revision work, which is not the case for many species originally described by Navás himself. When Navás established Valenzuela in 1924, he coined the genus name and placed several of his own newly described species within it. Later taxonomic studies re-evaluated these original classifications. In 1979, Martin Meinander reviewed European Psocoptera attributed to Navás, and showed that multiple species Navás had placed in Valenzuela were either not taxonomically distinct, incorrectly assigned to the genus, or actually represented earlier described species published under different names. As a result of this work, these problematic taxa were either treated as junior synonyms or moved to other genera. Later catalogues, including the 2002 global synthesis by Lienhard and Smithers, adopted these revisions and updated the documented species composition of the genus Valenzuela to reflect the changes. Several species that remain in Valenzuela today, including Valenzuela flavidus (Stephens, 1836) and Valenzuela subflavus (Rambur, 1842), were originally described by earlier authors, and their placement in the genus Valenzuela has been kept following later revisions.
